Earlier at the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi last month, Jaishankar had stated that India should engage the world on the basis of its confidence in its identity rather than trying to please the global community

Earlier this year, India began sending wheat to Afghanistan through the WFP via Pakistan after initial opposition from Islamabad. India has pledged 10 million tonnes of wheat donations to Afghanistan

Guterres' appeal comes in the wake of reports sporadic community violence across many areas in India, including capital New Delhi, as Hindu and Muslim religious festivals overlapped in the last couple of weeks

Cooperation between the US and India on averting a food crisis figured in talks between the leaders of the two countries last month. India is sitting on a wheat stockpile estimated at about 100 million tonnes, far in excess of a safety net

The Indian contingent is also "well known, and beloved" for its frequent mobile veterinary clinics in different parts of Upper Nile State that provide veterinary services, which are otherwise rarely available to cattle owners, for cows, goats, donkeys, sheep and other animals in the country.

As a “double victim of colonialism,”  Guterres said, “Africa is underrepresented in decision-making processes, in most of the multilateral institutions. And so, I do believe that a stronger representation of developing countries in many areas, from the Bretton-Woods institutions (like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) to the Security Council, would be an important reform”

"One of the first reasons that I wanted to come to India was the fact that India has a very long history of support for refugees. India opened its borders and it protected many people over many centuries," Triggs said

Since the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan last August, and the western sanctions that followed it, crippled the country’s economy and pushed millions back into poverty. Today, the country has the highest number of people, around 23 million, requiring urgent direct food assistance

The ISKP, the regional branch of ISIS, is known for bombing mosques, community centers, and schools in the area. Last year, over 90 students were killed when an ISIS suicide bomber detonated himself in a girls’ school in the area

"Everybody I've encountered here is thinking about this (green hydrogen). India can become not only a provider of green energy to its own economy, but can also start exporting it," reiterated Kyte, also an advisor to the UK government for the UN climate negotiations

Of the South Asian countries, Afghanistan was absent from the Assembly, while all the others abstained

South Asian peacekeepers dominate the 14,000-strong military segment of the MONUSCO operation with 1,974 from Pakistan, 1,888 from India and 1,634 from Bangladesh in addition to the Nepalis

While making probably the harshest criticism of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the Indian diplomat straddled the fine line of neutrality by not naming Russia.

The opposition has challenged the Pakistan Assembly dissolution before the Supreme Court, which heard the case on Monday but did not give a verdict

The pledging conference, co-hosted by Britain, Germany, and Qatar on Thursday, fell way short of the $4.4 billion that UN Secretary-General Antonio-Guterres had appealed for Afghans, he said, are being forced to take extreme measures